


two lonely beasts

by mellichor (ghostofcepheus)



Series: fantasy series [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast, Fantasy, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hate to Love, M/M, Magic, Romance, Slow Burn, cheesy stuff idk, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofcepheus/pseuds/mellichor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kuroo looks back, he regrets being a spoiled and selfish prince; he had been ruthless to his subjects and inconsiderate of his loyal servants, all who have also been cursed into the bodies of furniture—due to him treating them all as objects. His castle over the years lost its prized beauty and elegance: the paintings of his previous form had been torn up in one of his fits of rage, the once magnificent gates reduced into bars of rust, and the rose gardens have been ravaged by villagers who despised him and wanted him to stay away from the nearby town. He is hated by all, rejected by all, and abandoned by all except his servants.</p><p>He watches another rose petal falls; he has only so much time left before he spends eternity as the hideous beast he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the lonely brothers

After many days peering at his reflection in a mirror, Kuroo comes to admit that he has become a horrifyingly ugly beast. His claws are too long that he hurts everything he touches, his fangs are too sharp to make eating without biting his tongue easy, and his once-lovely skin is now scarred and covered with bulging veins. He was once the most handsome prince in all of the lands, but true to the witch’s words, his selfishness and spoiled personality had morphed him into a monster he sees in the mirror’s reflection.

 

As he looms over the delicate, cursed rose the witch had given him, he has finally accepted his fate to forever remain an ugly beast. He regrets not being kind to the poor old woman who came to his door begging for help, but the damage is done and he is to live with the curse and words the old woman had left him.

 

_ “If you could learn to love another, and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken.” _ He remembers the enchantress’s booming words.  _ “If not, you are doomed to remain a beast for all time.” _

 

Since then, he hasn’t left the castle grounds in over three years. When Kuroo looks back, he regrets being a spoiled and selfish prince; he had been ruthless to his subjects and inconsiderate of his loyal servants, all who have also been cursed into the bodies of furniture—due to him treating them all as objects. His castle over the years lost its prized beauty and elegance: the paintings of his previous form had been torn up in one of his fits of rage, the once magnificent gates reduced into bars of rust, and the rose gardens have been ravaged by villagers who despised him and wanted him to stay away from the nearby town. He is hated by all, rejected by all, and abandoned by all except his servants.

 

He watches another rose petal falls; he has only so much time left before he spends eternity as the hideous beast he is.

* * *

 

Tsukishima Kei lives with his brother in a cottage in the outskirts of the town. Their parents had passed away when they were very young, and as a result, the two brothers made it their utmost priority to work and live comfortably together. 

 

Kei spends his early morning walking up the dirt road that leads to the local schoolhouse. He enjoys the silence that the classroom brings in the morning, and he enjoys the scent of chalk and ink as he cleans the blackboards and organizes the primers—the time allows him to be alone with his thoughts and think of what the day’s lessons should be. As the time ticks forward, his students would come into the small classroom and sit down, placing their tin boxes of lunch and hats in the closet in the process. He also loves the noise the classroom and his students bring—he teaches students who walk from the town’s farms  and spend the sunrise feeding the animals before coming; he loves teaching to students who he knows each one of them have potential to strive for higher, and he loves finally hearing children who struggled for so long reciting the alphabet finally being able to read.

 

Many townspeople frequently tell Kei how difficult it is to hear him sometimes; he has a soothing voice, soft blue eyes, and a quiet personality, but in the classroom, he commands these traits to use to his advantage.  _ Strange _ , he hears other people whisper behind his back as he leaves to go home. _ Strange how a man who spends all his time teaching children has the most patience and perseverance of us all. _

 

The only person who is able to see the times where Kei loses his patience is Akiteru during the afternoons where Kei comes home, silently fuming and tight-lipped. It’s hard to tell when Kei is angry, and sometimes even Akiteru has to look up twice to notice how hard his younger brother grips a jar or handle. When Akiteru asks him what had happened, it takes awhile for Kei to answer, but when he does, it is a quiet answer.

 

“Akiteru, why do all of the townspeople see me as strange?” The brunette older brother has lost count of all the times he would hear Kei mutter this. He has lost count of all the time the young, quiet teacher would return home deflated, and lost patience over why the other townspeople would treat him—and his brother, too— so coldly.  

 

Was it because the young blonde man constantly has his nose in a book, with his eccentric brother constantly creating new gadgets and machines that eats coal and puffs out smoke? Was it when Kei would have a pensive, wistful look of wonder in his eyes as he reads about Persian poetry, or Mongolian folktales, or ancient Arabic philosophy on the existence of this universe? Did other treat the brothers rudely because of how Akiteru is seen not seen as an engineering genius but rather a failure, with his inventions constantly exploding or erupting in a horrid fire? 

 

These are few of the thoughts that constantly plague Kei, and over the years, the number of questions have only increased. 

 

There are only so many books in the world available that can distract Kei from his loneliness.

* * *

 

“ _ For goodness sakes, _ ” Kei hears his brother yelp outside, and runs out of the cottage to see Akiteru in front a smoking, sputtering machine. “How on earth did that happen?” Akiteru exclaims as he coughs and wheezes from the smoke. For the past few weeks, he had been working diligently on an idea to create a contraption that could reap wheat by itself from the fields and has been under the jeering taunts of the villagers; the brown haired engineer has worked stubbornly on making his idea work in time for the upcoming fair, but the awkward, screaming  object— Akiteru proudly calls it a “machine”— has stubbornly resisted cooperating with its creator.

 

“Akiteru, are you alright?” He cautiously approaches his brother who fumes as he is completely covered in ash.

 

“I’m about ready to give up on this hunk of junk! This idea is never gonna work, Kei, and the townspeople were right to think I was crazy to even try!” Akiteru angrily kicks at his failed invention and slumps down on the ground in a huff.

 

“Now, you always say that. And you always figure out a way to make your ideas work.” Kei gently chides his older brother and bends down to clean up the toolbox spilled on the ground. “Do you remember who was the one who fixed our stove? And you were the one who made that lamp last week! I don’t have to go out and buy candles for when I want to read at night.”

 

“I mean it, this time! I’ll never get that horrible contraption to work.”

 

“Yes, you will. And you’ll go to that fair tomorrow and win first  place.” Kei smiles and sets the toolbox next to the brunnett. The engineer pouts and turns his head away with a huff.

 

“... and you’ll become a world-famous inventor.” Kei adds.  His brother doesn’t immediately turn his head, but the blonde sees the tips of his ears turn pink. Akiteru always has picked himself up with the encouraging words from his brother. And sure enough, the engineer turns and peeks up at Kei.

 

“Do you honestly believe that?” Kei gives a nod and a grin, and within a few seconds, Akiteru is back to work, rummaging through his tools and snapping on his goggles.

 

“Hang on tight, Kei! I’ll fix this up in no time, and this machine will bring us a new life in no time!”

 

True to his word, it takes only a few more hours until the two brothers stand before the machine, pleasantly humming and blowing out small puff of air now, and watches it move in the pasture in front of them. There’s a look of disbelief and wonder in Akiteru’s eyes; he holds disbelief  that his skills were actually—true to Kei’s words—able to transform something that he had initially believed reigned from hell, and wonder for the possibility that he could very well win in the fair! From the corner of his eyes, Kei spots villagers craning their necks, scratching their heads in disbelief that the lunatic who always failed in the past finally succeeded. 

 

Kei puffs out his chest in pride for his older brother and holds his chin high.

 

Early in the morning the next day, Akiteru finishes packing the heavy machine into a cart with a grunt and tightens the reins on the horse. He wipes the sweat away from his brow and grins at his younger brother who emerges from the kitchen door.

 

“Are you sure you want to go to the fair alone? Will you be able to carry your invention by yourself?” Kei asks with raised eyebrows and hands his brother a neatly wrapped parcel and a sack that contained a few day’s worth of supplies.

 

Akiteru gratefully accepts the parcel and catches a wonderful sniff of cinnamon bread. “Of course, of course, don’t worry your pretty little head about me!” he exclaims and climbs onto his horse. “You should be asking me the first thing I’m going to do when I come back from the fair with the winner’s money! I promise you Kei, people are gonna realize what a genius I am with this invention here! Goodness, by the time I get back—,”

 

“I know, I know. We’ll be able to leave this town.” Kei shakes his head with a smile. “No matter what may happen, know the pride and admiration I hold for you, my brother.”

  
He watches his brother leave into the dark forest further down in the horizon, the early rays of dawn running to keep up with the cart. He mutters a quick prayer for the brown-haired man and prays for his success. Kei stays outside even after the dust kicked up by the cart settles, even after the sun gave up running after the cart, even after his brother enters the dark, unsettling forest.


	2. monsoon rains and ill tidings part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i....am so sorry for being so late in updating! I feel so horrible, so I wrote you guys an extra long chapter (over 6 pages written in a few days just for part one of this scene, what even) to make up for it, and i'll explain what's been up with me recently at the end note. but hey, with exams ending soon, i should definitely be doing a better job of updating more on time!
> 
> with that, kisses, i have missed you all and i hope you enjoy what i have written! c:

It takes a few long, tedious years before Kuroo stopped regarding himself as a human. His mother had long passed away when he was very young, leaving him neglected during his childhood years with a self-centered, squandering father. His father was known as a selfish duke who only who only splurged money on extravagant, gaudy parties and abandoned the needs of his subjects. Kuroo has long erased the memories of how he looked like when he was a boy, his once handsome face slashed and left as white blur in his mind and in the portraits around the castle; however, he could never forget the days during his childhood he hid in the library of his castle, using books as a medium of refuge from the repulsive adults in his life.

 

His father had a long line of concubines, frivolous and snide. Kuroo grew up not knowing the illegitimate siblings he has, nor ever bothering to know his “mothers”, nor ever learning how to trust anyone except for his faithful servants. Eventually, his father died at what he had loved doing so much—at one of his parties overdrinking wine which had been poisoned by one of his mistresses—and Kuroo’s half-siblings and mothers all leave the castle with dust kicked from their heels, leaving behind a long line of debtors for Kuroo to deal with.

  


So when he first transformed into the hideous monster he is, his only resort was to flee into the nearest village to beg for help. He begged and pleaded for help for the villagers to help him, to aid him into returning to his former self, but Kuroo was only met with the sharp ends of pitch forks and closed doors. He fended for himself with the aid of his loyal servants and spent the next few days with a raging fever and blistering pain. He was weary and ill as he heard the sounds of crashing glass and rocks thrown at his castle walls. He is exiled by his own people who once treated him kindly, and for endless nights, he endured the harassment of men and women who spit onto his grass and wreck grounds.

 

The cloudy night he finally snapped and lunged forward at a young man attempting to break into his castle was the day he finally stopped being in denial and accepted he is a beast. He has accepted that there is no hope for him to turn back to a human he once was, that there is no hope for him to ever escape the lonely fate set before him. He despises the glowing rose sitting on the broken table of his room. A beast is what he is called, and a beast he will be.

 

It was also a miracle in disguise of misfortune. He has only grown to know the cruelty of humans, the crudeness in men, and the heartlessness in women. His curse allows him to revel in the sweet divorce with humankind. Humanity has left him as a hunched beast in a broken home, and in return, Kuroo left humanity. Humanity had only repugnant figures such as father and fake mothers and ruthless siblings vying for a spot on the throne.

 

It has been years since a human has last dared to trespass into his territory. Kuroo’s roar is fearsome, and the villagers have been wise in leaving him alone.  Kuroo has no pity for humans; he has no sympathy for the young men who left his home in a mess, who mess with his servants, who are responsible for the long scars stretching across his back and chest. Fiends are what they are called, and fiends they will be. Humans are dirt beneath his feet and claws, and scum left on this earth.

 

A beast is what he is called, and a beast he will be.

* * *

 

Kei waits. As he waits for his brother to return over the next few days, he takes time to clean up his house and write new arithmetic exercises for the students in his school. He stops by the bakery and picks up bread for the elderly woman who lives next to him. He sweeps the yard of his home and plants tomato seeds in the back. He waits as the sun treads slowly up to its throne in the sky and slowly leaves its dominion, heightening the nervousness bubbling in the pit of Kei’s stomach when the day repeats.

 

Akiteru doesn’t come back. Kei waits a few more days. On Saturday, he stays inside from the heavy monsoon rains and eats dinner by himself. He sets a bucket under a leak and hopes his brother comes back to fix the roof. His only company for the weekend is a smoky gray cat that lazily sits on his porch and nibbles on the fish scraps given to it. _Isn't Akiteru suppose to be back by now?_

 

An entire week passes by, and Kei has no word back from the blonde. His stomach swells with panic and anxiety, and his mind races with all of the possible scenarios that could have happened to his brother. _Is the fair taking longer than usual? Did Akiteru take a wrong turn? Did he decide last minute to visit a friend in the countryside?_  These thoughts are the plague to his mind, the bites on his nails, and the dark circles under his eyes. When he could wait no longer, Kei throws on his cloak, unties his horse from the shed, and leaves his home.

 

He ask villagers passing by if any of them had heard a word from his brother, yet Kei is met with cold shoulders or a brief “the fair ended awhile ago” before whisking away quickly. It doesn’t take very long before Kei gives up entirely, reasoning it’d be much faster to search for his brother himself.  He turns to ride into the forest, heads turning as he enters the dark forest, and hopes if he traces his brother steps, he may run into him.

 

The dim light of the forest filtering through the leaves makes Kei pull his cloak tighter and to steer in the middle of the path. He feels his stallion underneath him tense up at every shadow that moves; the darkness of the forest makes his eyes squint and wish he thought more carefully to take a lantern with him. The blonde man steels his nerves and makes a habit of soothingly patting his horse’s mane, urging the both of them onward.

 

He tries to repress the memories of his childhood filled with elderly women warning the horrors and the curses of the forest. Snakes growing from the long tree shadows, the dead bodies of cursed warriors coming alive, young men transforming into werewolves on nights with an orange full moon—as a child, he believed all of these tales flowing from the elders’ mouths. Now, whether there tales were true or not, the only curse Kei dreads is being alone without his brother.

 

An hour ticks by slowing as the tree’s shadows grows closer and closer together as the sun draws down to the horizon. Kei shakes his head to keep his eyes from closing as well and focuses on the eerie screeches he hears in the forest to keep himself awake. The past week contained only endless nights of Kei shifting and twisting in his bed imagining all of the horrible, gruesome tragedies that could have befell his missing brother.

 

His lips twist into a pitiful smile. Akiteru always scolded him how his fretting and ill thoughts would catch up to him one day. Even when they were children, Kei was always worried over everything: from miniscule tasks of packing enough food for him and his brother to eat, to scraping enough coins to pay the landlord. His brother teased him for the wrinkles on the side of his hands; Kei found himself wringing his hands in his bouts of anxiety and it had become a bad habit he could never rid.

 

A fat waterdrop drips onto his cheek, and Kei spots the heavy, rolling clouds above the thick foliage. He mutters a curse to himself and nudges his horse to trot forward faster. He hopes there is a spot he can find to find shelter from the storm, but as the rain began to pour down, Kei loses hope. A loud grumble of thunder shakes the ground and booms in his ears. His horse cries and kicks its legs up in panic, throwing the blonde rider off  and runs away before he can attempt to calm the animal.

 

“Wait!” He winces as he picks himself up from the mud and curses his luck. He is alone in a supposedly-haunted forest that no matter how much Kei insists he does not believe in the tales, his skin still shivers and he looks around him for any snakes. He feels his wrist is sprained, and he could see no light except for a distant, broken lantern waving  in the distance.

... ... ...

“Hello?” The grand hall answers back with an eerie silence. The blonde man was taken aback at how a castle as gigantic as the one in front of him could be so utterly abandoned and unkept. The fountain in the front was smashed, the body of a young plump angel statue left without a face. Kei could spy no royal carriages that would usually belong, nor any servants loitering the main level of the hall, nor any artifacts of who this castle once belonged to. It felt as if he is intruding a home that now belongs to mice and ghosts, soulless and haunted.

 

Still, the blonde reasons, any menacing castle with a potential rat infestation is tea and cakes to waiting through a storm during monsoon season. He pulls the tall doors shut after him, breathing into the dry air. He cranes his head in amazement as he takes in the gilded detail of the hall and ceiling. A family of chandeliers hung high over his head, and the dark marbled stones beneath him reflect the adorned ceiling. Kei quickly looks away when he sees his own personal reflection and instead moves down the hall, seeing a long line of magnificent portraits of women and children dressed in colored silks he has never seen.

 

He edges forward to one particular portrait slashed through. He sees a young blonde girl cheerily smiling and sitting in the lap of a elegant woman with her ebony hair tastefully brought to the side with a crystal clip. A man with grim thin lips and sullen cheeks sat to the back in his cobalt blue robe, one hand gripping his knee and his other hand on the elbow of a young boy.

 

Kei frowns. The face and eyes  were violently slashed out, leaving only the white parch of paper beneath to show through. He gingerly presses his finger to the painting and feels the oil paint peeling off, like dried blood flaking off an old, ignored wound. The boy had such a small smile that seemed set-up and on show, yet he had a handsome jaw and confident posture. Kei feels the walls shutter in the howling winds of the storm and the shadows above him moving.

 

As he continues down the hall, he sees more paintings of the same boy violently slashed out. He shivers and quickly steps into a room at the end of the hall, furnished with a fireplace.

… … …

“You just couldn’t _try_ to be quiet, could you? You just had to invite the man to stay, didn’t we?” There’s an angry thump of a footstep and a grumbling from a slender rabbit. “Serve him tea, sit in the master’s chair, pet the pooch! Why if it wasn’t for you Koutaro, the Master still wouldn’t be mad at us!”

Bokuto grimaces at the fuming rabbit in front of him, hands on his hip and pacing back and forth. “I was trying to be hospitable, Tooru! The poor man’s cart broke, and he was stuck in the freezing rain. What else was I supposed to do?”

 

Tooru freezes in his pacing and shoots the silver-feathered owl a withering look.

 

“There were an infinite amount of possibilities anyone with a brain could’ve thought of! Not make so much noise, allow the man to stay in a room the Master does not use, keeping an eye on him so he wouldn’t wander into the Master’s room and messed with _that_ —anything except what you did, for heaven’s sake!”

 

“Hey, I’ll have you know that my brain is somewhere here in this body of mine!”

 

“Where? In the soft, squishy fat? In the fluffy feathers?”

 

“Would you two stop arguing?” The cursed rabbit and owl freezes in their snarky exchange and looks over to the small black cat lying lazily in the corner. “Arguing won’t help us figure out a way we can get the poor man out of the Master’s prison. It’s bad enough we all are stuck here, I wouldn’t like to add another person to our warm family here.”

 

The brown-furred rabbit huffs and crosses his arms. “Let’s hear _your_ genius ideas, Akaashi.”

 

“Well to start off, if you sass me one more time, I will pull your ears like last time.” The sly feline smirks at the terrified look on the rabbit.

 

“Did the cat caught your tongue?” Keiji and Tooru groan in unison as the owl cheerily chirps, happy to be able to use his puns. The two were ready to harp on Koutarou before the clicks of a small baby bird quickly hopping toward them diverts their attention from the issue. The blue bird stops, short of breath and wobbly.

 

“Hinata? What’s wrong?”

 

“You all, come quick, come quick! There’s a young man downstairs in the fireplace! Another one!” The tiny bird hops down a stairstep, frazzled and huffing from his long trek up the floor yet his voice full of excitement. A deep frown tugs down the smile on Akaashi’s lips but leans down as he lets Hinata hop onto his back, and the curse boy urges all of them to hurry down the stairs. They scamper down the grand staircase, sharply turning the corner to the room letting out light into the pitch black hallway. Oikawa hushes everyone as they crowd together at the crack of the door.

 

“Well? What do you think? I’d say he looks harmless enough.” Koutaro finally says after a long five minutes of gawking at the blonde man sitting by the fireplace. He had taken off his wet gloves and boots and left them by the fire near his cloak, shivering and rubbing his arms as he warms himself by the roaring fire. They huddle over the crack in the door, peering at the newcomer. “He’s a young man.”

 

“We know it’s a young man.” Tooru says and pushes away Bokuto's sharp waxy elbow digging into his stomach.

 

“He’s quite the looker, too.” Akaashi meows quietly to himself, twitching his whiskers. The warm light from the fire radiated the outline of the man’s blonde locks and his sharp cheekbones, washing him in bright summery yellows and reds.

 

“What do we do? Do we talk to him?” the owl whispers. Oikawa shoots an alarmed look.

 

“Do you not recall what just happened the other day?”

 

“Why can’t we at least find out why he’s here? Maybe he’s the one?” Bokuto raises his eyebrows. “I mean, look at him. You can’t deny that you at least considered it.” The two debate while the black cat remained silent. Keiji wonders how odd is it to have nobody visit out of fear for years and all of the sudden, two men show up with less than a week of time between their arrivals. He turns his head to inquire Hinata when he realizes the tiny bird is nowhere to be seen.

 

“Where is Shouyo?”

 

The three men whip their heads to find Hinata already chatting a mile a second with the blonde man. He’s alarmed—and a slightly bit taken aback by the phenomenon of a formerly conceived inanimate object full of life and thoughts—but as the cursed bird speaks and spews words jumbled with merriness and excitement, the man’s shoulders relax and ease back down. He cups his hands and delicately holds the bird up to his face so he could inspect it, believe the phenomenon for his eyes; however, not before he politely asks if he can, and the Hinata hops up within a blink of an eye.

  
“Guys, come on in! He’s completely harmless!” Tooru softly groans.

The blonde turns his head in the direction Shouyo faces. His faces furrows in surprise and shock as a owl, rabbit, and black kitten walk in: one smiling , the other frowning, and the last calmly looking upward.  Whether it may have been the utter exhaustion from the weather outside or the comforting cheeriness from the blue jay in his hands, he eases and turns to the animals, giving a slight bow of his head.

 

“Well, hello there.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the reason why i have been so late in updating was because i had to go through this chemotherapy-type surgery because i had some malignant cells in my body, so it took me awhile to recover. but! i'm doing much better in my health as well as mental health, and with me graduating soon, I should have more time to write! ;-;
> 
> EDIT: Okay, so I had originally the other characters as furniture, but...it was really weird to write, so I switched them all to animals so it can be easier to write!
> 
> i love all of the darlings that commented on the last chapter, and i would really appreciate any feedback for this one! c: i hope you all have a lovely weekend, my lovely babes!


	3. monsoon rains and ill tidings part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovelies! guess who graduated from highschool? :o now it's time for me to relax and write! although i am working, i should be able to write and update a lot more, should maybe look to an update a week? 
> 
> also, writing characters as furniture was really weird for me? so i switched all of them to animals. akaashi is still a black cat, but bokuto is an owl, oikawa is a rabbit, and hinata is a blue jay (just because i see him as a bird that spreads good luck wherever he goes)
> 
> hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

The more statues of terror-stricken beasts and moldy, half-broken furniture Kei passes by, the more his hair rises in apprehension and the higher his stomach rises. He doesn’t dare to turn back however; the second the little blue bird spoke of a slender brunette held in one of the cells in the lonely castle, Kei jumped up and demanded to be taken to wherever this cell was. The thought of his brother being safe and in one piece gave the courage for the blonde to continue walking through the large, lonely hallways, and he ignored any sounds of protest from the slender rabbit or wary warnings from the black kitten. 

 

As he treads behind Hinata, Kei notices the how eerily quiet the cursed animals become: he notices the tensed muscles in the black cat, the tremors in the owl, the unusual silence from the rabbit, and even the nervous hops the blue bird takes. He keeps his eyes forward,  the lack of light in the dark halls causing his eyes to squint. If it is the brunette he is looking for, then he and Akiteru could leave right away from this sinister castle and return back to their lives.

 

They reach a jail cell hidden away in the darkest corner of the tower. Kei feels the iron on the door chip off with rust and age, and he shoves forward, calling out for his brother’s name.

 

“Kei?” The blonde rushes forward to the figure curled on the ground. His crippled body is barely visible in the dimly lit room, and if it wasn’t for the lone torch on the wall, the blonde would have mistaken him for something else.  Kei presses his palms against the icy, cold muddy skin of his older brother, pulling him into his lap. The brunette could barely tilt his head before grimacing in pain.

 

“Akiteru! What in the world happened?” He gently sets his brother against the wall and tugs off his cloak to wrap it around Akiteru. His eyes are dull and exhausted, and his lips struggles to form words.

 

“Please Kei, run from this place immediately and don’t come back.”

 

“Who’s done this to you?”

 

“There is no time to explain, please leave now while you have the chance!” The brown-haired man pleads, pushing his brother’s hands off his shoulders. Kei grits his teeth and begins to lift his brother onto his back, ignoring his protests.

 

“Do you think I’m going to leave you behind?”

 

Suddenly, Kei finds himself letting go of his brother and spinning back. He hears a tiny yelp from the small bird and cat as they lunge forward to avoid being crushed by his feet. The jail is pitch black now— the heavy slam of the door snuffing out the torch in the room—except for the lone beam of light filtering through from the moon outside. He falls to his knees, head spinning and his stomach rising like ocean waves at the beginning of a storm, too overtaken by terror to raise his head and look at the bulky figure in the shadows.

 

“What,” the shadow hisses and Kei feels his heart plummet, “are you doing here?”

 

“Kei, run!”

 

“Who’s there? Who are you?” His voice wavers as he slowly pulls himself to his feet. His eyes could not tell the mysterious figure’s face from the heavy darkness of the room and could only distinguish the outlines of the thick torso and cloak that covered the man.

 

“The master of this castle.” The man’s voice is deep, rich with apathy and velvety hues of cruelty.  Kei feels a tide of rage at the figure for keeping his brother here in such a miserable condition, but he stills it as he clenches his jaw.

 

“I’ve come for my brother. Please, let him out! Can you not see with your own eyes he is sick and in ill health?”

 

“Then, he should not have trespassed.” the man says coolly. The gray owl winces from the corner the four animals cower in, not daring to raise their voice. 

 

“Please, I beg you, my only brother could die. I will do anything, pay anything, give anything to let him be free!”

 

“There is nothing you can do.” The voice of the man is booming, causing the blonde to rub his sweating palms against the wool of his shirt nervously. “In your brother’s blind ignorance, he has become cursed to be this castle’s prisoner.” 

 

“Then allow me to take my brother’s place.”

 

Despite being nearly concealed by the darkness, Kei could feel the man’s eyes boring into his. “You?” He says challengingly. “You would take your brother’s place?” The hair on Kei’s arms rose at the icy tone of the man. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees the rabbit and owl wince, huddling in the corner. He sees Akiteru’s eyes widen in horror, reaching forward with a cry.

 

“Kei! Please, no! This is my own mistake, I must bear the responsibility!”

 

“If I did,” Kei says levelly, steeling himself to stare forward, “would you let him go?”

 

The man remains silent, remaining in the shadows of the room. The rain from before had finally settled to a calmer steady sprinkle, making it the only sound of the room. The uneasy quiets swallows Kei into a pit of unsettling anxiety and panic, as if he is an unfortunate fisherman sucked into a stormy ocean grave.

 

“Fine.” Kei sucks in air through his lung, slowly relearning how to breath.  He swallows down the blooming sadness in his heart as he watches his captor slowly lift Akiteru out with one hand and places his other on a broken pile of poles lying outside the cell. 

 

“No, please, spare my brother!” Akiteru twists in the man’s grip, reaching out for Kei. The man ignores the engineer’s pleas as he mumbles out a curse onto the poles, morphing them into a gloomy, creaky-legged palanquin. 

 

“Your brother is now none of your concern.” He throws Akiteru into the palanquin, caging him in the cursed pile of wood. “Take him to the village.” At his command, the palanquin lurches forward down the stairs, wobbly walking on its own out of the castle grounds. The blonde feels his eyes well with blurry tears, dreading the hooded man in front of him and despising himself for ever creating this much pain and misery for Akiteru.

 

The man whirls around, his face still unseeable as he extends a hand toward Kei. Suits of rusty armor the blonde prisoner assumed to be only old decoration lunges forward and tightly grips his arms, shooting pain through his entire body.

 

“And  _ you, _ ” the cloaked man commands coolly, “take this human to his room.”

* * *

 

Kei had spent a good amount of hours drifting between fitful sleep and bouts of uncontrollable weeping before he wearily lifts his head from his pillow.. How long would he be trapped here in this inhospitable, cold castle? All Kei wants more than anything in the world is to be by his brother in their small, warm cottage. He wouldn’t mind facing all of the sneers and jeering from the villagers and would rather face their horrible personalities rather than to be trapped in a castle where he knew nothing of his surroundings.

 

With eyes red and tender from tears, Kei pushes himself up on his bed, his muscles stretching and popping from his curled-up position on the mattress. As he groggily sits up, he notices he hasn’t bothered to take in his room until now. He expected his room to be more bleak and as grim as he felt inside, yet the interior is nothing remarkable compared to the overall setting of the castle. It is simply furnished; the only lavish thing in the room is the window that taunts Kei with the view to the forest back home.

 

To his brother.

 

As a pang of hot anger and detestment for the hooded man sprouts from his chest, Kei turns his head as he hears a soft ‘click’ of the door. The lock shifts from the other side and quietly cracks the door open. The blonde could see a pair of eyes peering up at him.

 

“Hinata, is that you?” 

 

The door opens wider to show the sheepish blue bird hopping into the room. “Am I allowed to come in?”

 

“As long as I won’t get you in trouble for it.” He immediately regrets his words as he sees the wince on the bird’s face.

 

“I’m sorry. I thought you were mad at me.” The bird flutters onto his bed, busying himself with his feathers to avoid the blonde’s eyes.

 

“And why would you think that? I only got myself into this mess because of my own actions. I should’ve never told my brother to go to the fair.” Kei smiles bitterly before his lips twisted into a frown. “Even in the worst of times, I cause my brother misfortune. He must really detest me.”

 

The blue bird shook his head quickly but hopping onto Kei’s palm. “No, don’t say that! Even while he was here, Akiteru always spoke so endearingly and highly for you about all of the amazing things you do! I think if anything, he is regretting you taking his place.” Realizing the last statement, the cursed bird stammers and apologizes quickly.

 

“That’s not what I meant!”

 

Kei lets a out a slow exhale and swallows the lump in his throat. “No, it’s fine. I knew what you meant.” Despite of that, he couldn’t help but feel the guilt of putting his older brother through so much agony. After years of taking care of him, this is how he repays his brother? His stomach rises before he forces it down. He plays with the soft orange tuft of hair on the top of Shoyou’s head.

 

“The Master wasn’t always like this. It’s just that when it comes to people, he—,”

 

“Frankly,” he finally spits out his words that were soaked inside for so long, “ I don’t care in the slightest bit for your master. It doesn’t excuse what he has done to my brother. ”

 

Hinata stays quiet with a pensive look on his face. “When you live in a cursed castle for so long, you start losing your touch of humanity.” And with that, Shoyou quickly cuts off the conversation with a sudden shake of his wings and a hop onto the floor. “You must be awfully hungry, huh? Have you even had dinner yet?”

 

Kei feels the hard knot in his stomach, and he doesn’t dare to turn down an actual  meal after a long day. “Well, I am hungry. . .”

 

“Then off we go! The chef can whip up a great supper in a blink of an eye. I think we’ll have stew tonight. Oh, but you should probably change out, you look a little…”the cursed bird sniffs and clears his throat. “Well, it’s alright, we can get a nice bath warmed up for you after dinner.”

 

Hinata nudges the wardrobe nestles in the corner of the room. “Come on now, we don’t have all night! Wake up and give Kei a change of clothes will you?” To that, within a blink of an eye, the wardrobe groans open and shuffles over to the shocked blonde. He trips as he stumbles back in surprise, but a stool slides over to catch his fall. He lands heavily on the cushion; he is filled with incredulity at the concept of inanimate objects being able to move on their own and is so encaptured by the moving objects in front of him that he has no focus to protest against the wardrobe pulling off his shirt and combing his hair.

 

When they finish—and after much objection to Hinata insisting Kei to “get a clean trim”— Kei follows the blue jay down the grand staircase in a state of stupefy. Unlike from before, the halls and corridors whirls with animals and furniture alive with energy and life; the castle continues to give off its dark and unsettling mood, but now exudes a sense of eccentricity. Kei pauses to let a family of one-eyed amber mice pass in front of him on their way to the east wing and picks up snippets of conversation from a set of broken children’s toys on the stairwell.

 

It is a home, he realizes; a home for everything ever imagined that was ever looked at with disdain or fear. It is a place that welcomes the unwelcomed.

 

He sits at a long wooden table in a warm room with a roaring fireplace. A set of tea cups and a teapot scuttles over to him, pouring his a cinnamon-scented cup of tea he delicately sips. Hinata flutters away to an adjacent room and comes back a few minute later, cheery and bumbly as ever.

 

“One delicious bowl of stew right up!” he chirps.

 

“I truly appreciate how kind you are being right now Shoyou, but . . . are you sure it’s okay for me to be down here?” Kei feels his stomach twist. As much as he despises the hooded master, he wouldn’t dare to see another episode of the man’s anger—whether at him or at his other servants.

 

Before Hinata could reply, the slender black kitten hops onto the table and sits in front of him. His coat shines and is as delicate from the cat he had seen earlier.

 

“It’s the least we owe you for everything that has happened to you. I’m sure Kuroo can get over a poor captive eating a full meal. The master can have . . . a short temper when it comes to humans coming onto his grounds.”

 

“Akaashi!” Hinata says. “Where were you? Is he still mad?”

 

“I was in the throne room for a good past hour. Koutaro and Tooru got the worst of scoldings. Lucky for a bird as cute as you, I covered for you and said you were in the kitchen with Kozume the entire time.” The cat’s green eyes flicks over to the blonde, and Kei’s mind clicks when he realizes it is the same cat from before.. “We are the ones that usually gets reprimanded when humans come onto the castle grounds.”

 

The blonde man bit his lip. It seems the villagers were right in that all he is good at doing is causing misfortune on others.  _ They must be celebrating now that I am gone. _ “I’m sorry.”

 

Akaashi shakes his head. “Do not apologize. That was a very brave thing you did, dear.” Hinata quickly nods, and the pot of tea blows out a puff of steam from its nose as a sign of agreement. He forgot how everything in this castle could easily hear what one is saying.

 

“But I lost my brother, my dreams, everything. And there is no doubt I have caused an unspeakable amount of grief onto my brother.” Kei huffs out and take another sip of his tea to wash away the lump in his throat. He feels like a fool; he feels as if he were an unfortunate merchant stuck in the middle of a foreign town with nothing in his pockets and no comforts to turn to. A sense of rootlessness sinks in him and leaves him as a plant whose roots were destroyed by a storm.

  
The black cat notices the look of forlorn on the man’s face. “Keep your chin up, Tsukishima. It’ll turn out alright in the end. You’ll see. For now, just rest and have a warm meal.” And with that, the cat turns and trots away to find a servant to bring out the food. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should really work on the other stories i have (i just wish i had a beta because then things would go so much faster huhuhu)... ^^;; but i really hoped you guys enjoyed this chapter! remember to leave kudos or comments-- you guys are always so sweet and give me motivation to write, hehe...

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on tumblr at mellichor!


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